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I’ve picked the wrong team – Mark Robins apologises for Coventry defeat
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PA Sport staff
Press Association
Mark Robins took responsibility for defeat by Swansea (Mike Egerton/PA)
Mark Robins took responsibility for defeat by Swansea (Mike Egerton/PA)

Mark Robins took full responsibility after his Coventry side were beaten 2-1 by Swansea at the CBS Arena.

The Sky Blues boss went with the same 10 outfield players that started the agonising 2-1 defeat by Tottenham on Wednesday but found themselves 2-0 down after half an hour thanks to Liam Cullen and Oli Cooper.

Ronald’s own goal gave Coventry a lifeline, but they could not grab an equaliser and were left with just one win in six this season.

Robins said: “That will teach me (for not changing the side). Was it tiredness? It can’t be that. The recovery that they’ve got. They’ve had time off, a recent international break, we’ve played a couple of games, and you expect them to be able to go again.

“In hindsight, I’ve picked the wrong team and should have freshened it up and generally I do, but I wanted to keep those together and give them another opportunity and it has come back to kick me.

“Hindsight is a brilliant thing. I spent a long time procrastinating and I don’t normally do that, shall I do it, shall I make changes?

“I normally make changes and in the end I’ve gone with it and stuck with it and it hasn’t worked today.

“There are no real positives to take because it just didn’t look like us at all. We’ve got to get back at it and quickly because we need to start picking points up.

“Performances to this point have been OK, and sometimes more than OK, and last week was a decent week, at Watford and against Tottenham, and today was just a fall way back and we didn’t get what we wanted or needed.

“We deserved to lose the game. We didn’t deserve to get anything from the game and I’ve got to take that on the chin and then get on with planning for next week because there is nothing I can do about this.”

Swansea boss Luke Williams was delighted for striker Cullen, who netted his third goal of the season as the Welsh club earned back-to-back wins.

Williams said: “We deserved the win, the second half was far different but in the first half we were well valued for the two goals we scored.

“A few more games we will be able to understand if we’re good, or if we’ve been somewhat fortunate when we’ve hit oppositions in a bad moment. I don’t know yet.

“I’m waiting to see my group, to show me over 10, 12 games… OK this is us now.

“We’ve won back-to-back games for the first time so we should be pleased, now we have to continue otherwise it was frustrating that we didn’t capitalise on a good moment.

On Cullen, he added: “I’m happy with the goals, I’m happy with the tireless work that he puts into these performances, I’m happy with the way he communicates with his team-mates and with the staff, I’m happy with the way he comes in every single day and trains.

“I really hope he can go on and get a decent return, I’ve known the boy for a while because I was at Swansea before, he’s a really likeable guy because of how much he gives day in, day out. He’s really professional and wants to do well, this is his club, so when you think of all those things you’re desperate for that player to have a great season.”

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ChampionshipCoventrySwansea
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